


a bottle of whiskey in the trunk of the Chevy and a dead man at our feet

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: I swear I didn't mean for my first Les Mis fic on here to be a sadfic, M/M, but I didn't write situational irony so there's that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:26:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You could hardly tell that the break-up was actually just a drawn out murder-suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a bottle of whiskey in the trunk of the Chevy and a dead man at our feet

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on the kink meme: http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/13024.html?thread=5661408#t5661408

It was mutual in that neither of them thought the relationship was going anywhere. Grantaire, ever the cynic, had been squinting through the glare of exit lights ever since the beginning and Enjolras? Well. He had finally found the one cause he couldn’t fight for any more.

So, that was how it ended, in a run-down apartment that smelled like paint and alcohol. It was very nearly cordial. You could hardly tell that the break-up was actually just a drawn out murder-suicide.

(Because, Grantaire? The painter? The cynic? The atheist whose only hope was a god? He’s not good at endings, and he’s not good at impulse control, and he’s been staring over a ledge since he hit sixteen in the back room of a bar. He’s going to die first.)

It happens quickly, but then death always does. The part leading up to dying, those can take a while, but death itself happens quickly, in the blink of an eye, in-between heartbeats, in the mere seconds between the headlights of a grey BMW hitting a boy in a green sweatshirt and the front of the car catching up.

It was an accident in that the only witness was Eponine, who had so many secrets that adding one more—one more, like he heard the car coming, or the way he smiled right before impact—was hardly any weight.

That’s the murder, moving on to the suicide.

(Enjolras is next, because while everyone was busy noticing that Grantaire would follow his Apollo anywhere they never saw the way the god never went anywhere without making sure his cynic was behind him. He dies as soon as an absolutely wrecked Eponine tears back into the Musain without the man who she had been walking home. His body takes a while to get the hint, though.)

Most people thought that Grantaire was the one courting death, what with the alcoholism and the trackmarks. Grantaire did no such thing. He nodded at death from across the bar every now and then, perhaps, but he had better men to court. Enjolras was the one who spun death around on dance floors, who slipped a hand up death’s bony spine, who danced through police raids and bullets and teargas and panicking masses and riots. Enjolras was death’s most ardent suitor, right up until he gave his heart to a painter. And death wanted that heart back, and since Enjolras didn’t have it anymore she went after the boy who did.

(Death has always been unreasonably jealous; after all, aren’t they all hers in the end?)

Enjolras didn’t drink the way Grantaire had. He wasn’t trying to forget or suppress. It was just that people had always joked about Grantaire always being at the bottom of a bottle, so Enjolras drained one bottle, and when Grantaire wasn’t at the bottom of that one, started on another. The water bottle fooled no one, especially since the time they had been forced to track him down in a park where he was shaking on a bench, red-eyed because the sheets had stopped smelling like Grantaire.

He took to wearing one of Grantaire’s hoodies, and sometimes he would catch a glimpse of himself in a mirror and his heart would leap up, confused into thinking that the one who should be wearing the jacket had finally shown up, and Enjolras wouldn’t even be mad for him this time for how late he was (and he was so very late) because he was finally here (here, where he was supposed to be, with Enjolras and not making friends with the roots of a willow tree). Then he saw the gold hair and drained his flask.

Grantaire wasn’t at the bottom of this one, either.

It takes a year and seven months for his body to wake up and realize it’s been left behind. Luckily, it happens in the middle of a riot so all it takes is an overly-eager trigger finger attached to a boy straight out of the academy and zealous to earn his shiny new badge for it to catch up to the bits of him that have practically mummified in their wait.

And that’s the suicide.

It’s a tragedy in that no one wants to admit that they think it’s maybe better this way. They’re buried together, because the last two years have been a lesson in keeping them apart, and there’s an untouched bottle of whisky that becomes a toast. It burns like claw marks on the way down and no one finishes their glass, opting instead to pour them down the sink with the rest of the bottle.

It’s a poor memorial, but that hardly matters. It was only a formality; none of them have the power to forget, even if they wanted to.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions/ complaints/ concerns can be tossed into the comments section or at occamsphaser.tumblr.com  
> Title from "Wishbone" by Richard Siken.


End file.
